


Four Words

by CalamityMoon



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Danny Phantom's Identity Is A Secret, Full Ghost Danny Fenton, Gen, Identity Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29272248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalamityMoon/pseuds/CalamityMoon
Summary: Danny Fenton is dead and Phantom is the ghost that has taken over his body. It will only take four words to tell Danny's dad that his son is gone, but is Phantom brave enough to say them?
Comments: 3
Kudos: 68





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Simulacrum](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15645048) by [bibliophilea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibliophilea/pseuds/bibliophilea). 
  * Inspired by [Fusion](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/756243) by occasionalphantomfiction. 



It will surely only take four words to crush Maddie and Jack Fenton's spirits and send them running for their ecto-weapons. 

Phantom stands in front of the mirror, inspecting his appearance for the final time before he goes to tell them the truth. 

He isn't sure how anyone could think he really was Danny Fenton. He occupies the boy's body but there's something different about the way he holds himself in it. 

Phantom has a swagger that fourteen year old Danny never had the chance to master.  
Every day he stretches out his ghostly form and pilots this body like it was always his. He stands before ghost hunters and pretends there isn't a primal fear filling his body and telling him to run. 

Danny is gone and Phantom is a beggar at the feast, holding on to a stolen body by the edge of his fingertips.

It's been four years now. He's four (or eighteen) and he's ready for the truth. Sam and Tucker are off to college and everyone wonders why Danny isn't planning to do anything with his life.

It feels wrong to do anything other than what Danny would have wanted, but Phantom can't leave Amity Park to train as an astronomer. He could barely pass twelfth grade.

So he takes one last glance at himself, at a ghost masquerading as a boy, and hurries downstairs to the kitchen.

Jack Fenton has burned the toast and he nods at Phantom as he passes. "Morning Danny."

"Morning Dad," Phantom says with a smile, stuck on autopilot in his role as Danny.

He has to say it now, before he chickens out. 

Danny Fenton is dead.

I'm not your son.

You'll never see him.

I stole his body.

Jack hands him a slice of toast with a wide grin, "The toaster was contaminated so I've bought a new one, what do you think?"

Phantom takes a bite. It tastes like dust but he smiles. "Great."

"Something wrong?"

It feels wrong to break Danny's dad's heart over breakfast, but what else can he do? Keep living a lie for another four years?

It's graduation day and Jack deserves to know that it isn't his son that is going to stride across the stage to take that cap and gown.

"I have something I need to tell you."

"Go on then," Jack puts down his toast.

Phantom transforms in front of Danny's father and the man doesn't even blink. He's a ghost hunter and there's a ghost in front of him and he doesn't reach for his weapons. 

Jack claps. "Well done for telling me son. Your Mom and I, we've known for a long time that you're the ghost hero. The portal... Vlad told us what happened."

Phantom's mouth falls open. "You've known all this time? Ever since the accident, you've known about your son and you said nothing-"

"I know my son's a hero," Jack says, reaching out to slap Phantom on the back. His hand falls straight through him.

Phantom stands, tail hovering above the ground. This is wrong. Telling the truth was meant to be easier than the lie.

"I'm sorry Mr. Fenton but I'm... I'm not..."

He sees the way Jack's face starts to fall when he calls him Mr. Fenton and he realises that all he is going to do is make the man cry.

All of these years, all of the memories he's formed with this family, they'll all mean nothing once he tells the truth. They've kept him from being just another ghost serving an Obsession and he is so grateful for that.

Phantom knows that once he can no longer be Danny he might lose his grip on this body. He might lose the ability to be human. He might even lose the ability to resist his Obsession, to be something other than simply a hero.

He sighs and looks up at Danny's dad. The truth will have to wait.

"Don't worry, I'm okay," he says, transforming back to human form.

Jack wraps his arms around the ghost he still thinks is his son. 

Anyone looking at them would see Danny and Jack, father and son, sharing a tender moment before graduation. It's time for Danny to step out into the world and be an adult. Things are going to be different soon and that'll be strange but it's the right thing.

Phantom leans back and tries to memorise the look of fatherly tenderness he sees on Jack's face. Ghosts don't have fathers or mothers. He's lucky.

"I promise I'm okay," he says quietly, repeating it until the words sound true.

Everything is fine now.

Danny Fenton is dead.

Danny Phantom will live.

Everything is fine now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skipping forward, to after the reveal.

Phantom stands in front of them, the people who were once his family, and his mouth opens and closes like a fish's. He wants to tell them that he never meant to lie, never meant to steal their son's body, never meant to step foot in the human realm. He supposes what he wanted doesn't really concern them now.

"Can I-"

Jazz tilts her head to the side. Probably psychoanalysing him, deciding which disorder he would fit and what the ideal treatment would be. Even if he isn't her brother, even if she might grow to hate him, Jazz's best feature is that she can't stop caring.

"You don't need to ask for permission to speak," she says gently, hand in front of Maddy to keep her mother from running out and attacking Phantom.

Phantom bows his head. "Can I take a few things from my - from Danny's room? I'm leaving, you don't have to worry about seeing me again, there's just some things I'd like to keep. To remember you all."

If he were really Danny then it might have been the toy telescope that he chose to keep, or the book of constellations Jack had got him for his eighth birthday. Jack and Danny had spent countless hours looking at that book together, picking out the stories told across the sky.

Phantom isn't Danny. He isn't a normal ghost anymore either, the items he wants to take don't relate to his Obsession. It's not about protecting himself or others, it's about remembering that once people thought he was human. A photo of the family, a sketch Sam had drawn, Tucker's old baseball. Small things that no-one will miss.

Maddie bites her lip. "You want to remember us?"

"Mom, you were the best," he says, cringing. He wasn't supposed to call her Mom anymore, he was only making it harder for all of them.

Even though she was a ghost hunter, when she learned part of the truth and thought that her son was a halfa, she'd put away her weapons. When the truth was getting too difficult to hide anymore, Jazz had put a padlock on the weapons cupboard in the Fenton basement and led Phantom up the stairs. He'd spilled the beans and watched them all break down. 

At first they hadn't believed and had tried to test him, asking questions about Danny's childhood that there was no way he would be able to answer. Much later they understood. 

He stopped going to school, he stopped going outside, he stopped seeing Sam and Tucker. Phantom would run downstairs for the food that his human body still needed and then back up to Danny's room. The idea that Danny's family might see him pretending to be their son when they knew the truth made him too uncomfortable to be around them anymore.

And then this morning they had stood at the doorway to Danny's room and called for an intervention. Phantom was sure they were going to ask him to leave. Maybe split him from Danny's body and send him back into the Ghost Zone. 

"I need to ask you something and I need you to tell me the truth," Maddie says, her eyes filling with tears.

Phantom nods eagerly. If there is anything he can to help them then he will do it. "Anything."

"If you left... would Danny come back? Is he in there with you?"

Phantom bowed his head. "I'm sorry. Danny isn't here. There's only me."

A ghost formed from the memory of their son.

"You know things though," Jazz protests, "that there's no way for you to have learned. You knew Danny's favourite colour before I told you and you remembered that Danny was allergic to sunflower seeds."

Danny wasn't allergic to sunflower seeds at all. That statement is a test. Phantom knows it and he doesn't bite. This time is for Jazz to work through things and come to the realisation that her parents already have. Danny Phantom isn't their Danny and he never can be.

There's a moment when Jazz looks about to cry. Jazz never cries, not in front of their parents.

Phantom steps forward, arms outstretched, on auto-pilot before he realises. He's not her brother and she won't want to hug him.

Jazz sighs and shakes her head. "Come on, Danny. Are you going to give your sister a hug?"

"I'm not Danny."

"Yes, you are. You're Danny Phantom. And if that isn't the same as Danny Fenton we're going to have to deal with that, but you're still my brother. You're still Danny."

She reaches out and hugs him tight, the sound of her heartbeat filling his ears.

Silently he promises Danny, the original Danny, that he'll look after his family as long as he can.

Because the truth is, no matter what, Phantom will always want to protect.

And because he's taken the form of this teenage boy, he'll always want to be Danny.

He'll be Danny when he's twenty five, assistant manager at a local store and wondering what he's going to do with this life that he's been granted.

He'll be Danny when he's thirty, standing beside Sam at the altar pledging to love her for the rest of their lives.

He'll be Danny when he's fifty, watching Jazz take over Fentonworks while their parents enjoy their retirements.

He'll be Danny when he's old and gray, when slipping into his ghost form makes him look like he could be his own grandson.

He'll still be Danny when he's only a ghost yet again, when this life is over, and he returns to the Ghost Zone. Or when he decides to stay in Amity Park for the rest of his forever, protecting this place and the descendants of these people who have shown him such love.

Maddy and Jack step forward and join Jazz in hugging Phantom.

"I promise, we'll be okay," Jack says, echoing Phantom's words back to him.

And they all will be.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first fanfic in literally a decade ahjfhsjfk
> 
> i've been writing only original fiction since then but i've loved reading fics all this time and figure i'd try writing them again!


End file.
